Gaza War Testimonies 2009

12 images Created 20 Jun 2011

Testimonies from Gaza: White Phosphorus

" When the second shell hit I dropped my baby girl Shaed from my arm. I could not help it , my arm was burning . At that moment I did not hear the sounds of my children anymore.
They melted my children away! ".
Sabah Abu Halima
Mother of 9 children
Beit Lahiya, Gaza
March 27,2009

Sabah Abu Halima was holding her baby daughter Shaed in one arm while holding the hand of her son Ali with her other hand when the second shell hit her home in Beit Lahiya ,Gaza on January 4,2009.
The shock of the impact and her burning arm caused her to drop her baby into the burning inferno . Her husband and four of her nine children were burned to death inside the home.
When family members came to try to help her baby was found dead laying on her father's chest by the doorway. As they tried to evacuate the wounded and the tiny body of Shaed by a wagon attached to a donkey they came under fire by Israeli soldiers who shot on them killing two of the wounded while two others managed to escape.
Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and others are referring to incidents such as this as qualifying as war crimes. The use of white phosphorus and other incendiary weapons is covered in one protocol of a 1980 international treaty, the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, that bans making civilians "the object of attack" by such arms. White phosphorus is used by militaries to provide a smoke screen during troop movements. Israeli Army has denied charges by human rights organizations that its bombardment of heavily populated areas of Gaza with white phosphorus munitions violated international laws and could constitute war crimes.
Ten weeks after this horrifying incident yet another family member has died died of her wounds during her medical treatment in Egypt.
Farah,3, suffered severe burns as she was held when her mother caught on fire.